While attending Austin's South-By-Southwest Film Festival in March of this year, I caught a screening of the big-studio adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk’s novel Choke, which I’m told is daring and provocative and, apparently, beloved by hipsters. The theater was filled with big studio Men in Black armed with night vision goggles and whatnot to prevent any pirating of their upcoming release...odd, considering the much more likeable and successful Knocked Up got screened at the 2007 festival without nearly so much off-putting, paranoid nonsense.
Anyway, Choke tells the story of sex addict Sam Rockwell and his sex addict friends (including Joel Grey?!!?!?) and their struggles with sex addiction, which is apparently a terrible problem in Los Angeles and, uh, probably other places (like the story's New Jersey setting, Palahniuk's Washington State stomping grounds and wherever David Duchovny happens to be at any given moment)...although, to be fair, I’m guessing the condition is more of a problem for sex addicts who don’t get to screw around with gorgeous starlets like Kelly Macdonald and Bijou Phillips.
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